Single nucleotide variation detection by ligation of universal probes on a 3D poyacrylamide gel DNA microarray

Oligonucleotide Immobilization and Hybridization on Aldehyde-Functionalized Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) Brushes

DNA biosensing requires high oligonucleotide binding capacity interface chemistries that can be tuned to maximize probe presentation as well as hybridization efficiency. This contribution investigates the feasibility of aldehyde-functionalized poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) brush-based interfaces for oligonucleotide binding and hybridization. These polymer brushes, which allow covalent immobilization of oligonucleotides, are prepared by surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) of HEMA followed by a postpolymerization oxidation step to generate side chain aldehyde groups. A series of polymer brushes covering a range of film thicknesses and grafting densities was investigated with regard to their oligonucleotide binding capacity as well as their ability to support oligonucleotide hybridization. Densely grafted brushes were found to have probe oligonucleotide binding capacities of up to ∼30 pmol/cm(2). Increasing the thickness of these densely grafted brush films, however, resulted in a decrease in the oligonucleotide binding capacity. Less densely grafted brushes possess binding capacities of ∼10 pmol/cm(2), which did not significantly depend on film thickness. The oligonucleotide hybridization efficiencies, however, were highest (93%) on those brushes that present the lowest surface concentration of the probe oligonucleotide. These results highlight the importance of optimizing the probe oligonucleotide surface concentration and binding interface chemistry. The versatility and tunability of the PHEMA-based brushes presented herein makes these films a very attractive platform for the immobilization and hybridization of oligonucleotides.

Effect of oligonucleotide probes substituted by deoxyinosines on the specificity of SNP detection on the DNA microarray

One of the main factors that can affect the quality of microarray results is the microarray hybridization specificity. The key factor that affects hybridization specificity is the design of the probes. In this paper, we described a novel oligonucleotide probe containing deoxyinosines aimed at improving DNA hybridization specificity. We compared different probes to determine the distance between deoxyinosine base and SNPs site and the number of deoxyinosine bases. The new probe sequences contained two set of deoxyinosines (each set had two deoxyinosines), in which the interval between SNP site and each set of deoxyinosines was two bases. The new probes could obtain the highest hybridization specificity. The experimental results showed that probes containing deoxyinosines hybridized effectively to the perfectly matched target and improved the hybridization specificity of DNA microarray. By including a simple washing step after hybridization, these probes could distinguish matched targets from single-base-mismatched sequences perfectly. For the probes containing deoxyinosines, the fluorescence intensity of a match sequence was more than eight times stronger than that of a mismatch. However, the intensity ratio was only 1.3 times or less for the probes without deoxyinosines. Finally, using hybridization of the PCR product microarrays, we successfully genotyped SNP of 140 samples using these new labeled probes. Our results show that this is a useful new strategy for modifying oligonucleotide probes for use in DNA microarray analysis.

Endonuclease V-assisted accurate cleavage of oligonucleotide probes controlled by deoxyinosine and deoxynucleoside phosphorothioate for sequencing-by-ligation

Sequencing-by-ligation (SBL) is one of the next-generation sequencing methods for massive parallel sequencing. The ligated probes used in SBL should be accurately cleaved for a better ligation in the next cycle. Here, a novel kind of oligonucleotide probe that could be accurately cleaved at the given position was proposed. Deoxynucleoside phosphorothioates were introduced into the deoxyoxanosine-containing oligonucleotide probes in order to increase the cleavage accuracy of endonuclease V on double-stranded DNA templates. The results illustrated that incorporating deoxynucleoside phosphorothioates could greatly reduce the effect of the nonsynchronous sequencing primer, and the queried bases of the DNA templates were unambiguously identified with 5 cycles of sequencing ligations. Additionally, the read length can reach up to 25 bp with high accuracy. The SBL-based method is inexpensive, has high-throughput, and is easy to operate allowing massive scale-up, miniaturization and automation.

Simple one-step process for immobilization of biomolecules on polymer substrates based on surface-attached polymer networks

For the miniaturization of biological assays, especially for the fabrication of microarrays, immobilization of biomolecules at the surfaces of the chips is the decisive factor. Accordingly, a variety of binding techniques have been developed over the years to immobilize DNA or proteins onto such substrates. Most of them require rather complex fabrication processes and sophisticated surface chemistry. Here, a comparatively simple immobilization technique is presented, which is based on the local generation of small spots of surface attached polymer networks. Immobilization is achieved in a one-step procedure: probe molecules are mixed with a photoactive copolymer in aqueous buffer, spotted onto a solid support, and cross-linked as well as bound to the substrate during brief flood exposure to UV light. The described procedure permits spatially confined surface functionalization and allows reliable binding of biological species to conventional substrates such as glass microscope slides as well as various types of plastic substrates with comparable performance. The latter also permits immobilization on structured, thermoformed substrates resulting in an all-plastic biochip platform, which is simple and cheap and seems to be promising for a variety of microdiagnostic applications.